Hanging in the Aspen

Last night's assignment was cool, but it took forever for people to come along the trail. I guess it makes me happy, really, that these trails are still so empty.

This photo will probably be the lead picture in tomorrow's paper:


Here was an alternative, but it's more about the rider than the trees, which isn't what we're going for with this story. This lucky dude lives in neighboring Rollinsville.


And for whatever reason, Josh (who's playing editor this week) didn't like this photo, and chose a different one. But since this is MY blog, I can love this photo all I want. :)


I didn't really get to ride much afterward, but that was okay. It's a rest week, anyway. I should be back at the long, slow rides this weekend.

Buzz Off, Man

Interesting day at the office today...had to visit a beekeeper. I've photographed him before, but it was in the winter when the bees were mostly dormant. This time, they were buzzing around like the proverbial busy bees, and the beekeeper got dressed up his full veil.


I didn't wear any head covering, because he warned me that it's extremely hard to shoot through the veil. Luckily I'm not really afraid of bees, because then he did this:


I considered myself lucky that only one bee bothered me. Apparently they are attracted to contrast, and the dark blue strap on my camera against the white of the bee suit I was wearing was more than one could resist. It landed on my shoulder, buzzing loudly in my ear. I tried not to panic, but walked quickly away from the hives and tried to shoo it away. I couldn't figure out where it was, though, and Tom the beekeeper had to come over to help me. He was poking around in my hair, saying, "Hmmm...I can hear it; where is it?" Meanwhile I was trying to stay calm and not imagine getting stung on the neck. Ouch!!!! He discovered it, pinned under my camera strap, and flung it away. Wheeeeeew.

Here's me, in my contrasty outfit, having survived 20 minutes of standing around beehives with no headcovering:


Then on my drive home, I found a Native American artist working on a carving out of an enormous tree stump:


Still can't decide if I like it better in black and white:


Tomorrow I get to ride in Nederland and get paid for it -- sweet! We're going a story about organisms that are threatening aspen trees, and what better way to find people near aspen trees? I'll just camp out in Aspen Alley up there, and hopefully find tons of people cruising through, hiking, riding, and even on horseback, probably. And tomorrow morning I get to photograph real estate agents that provide their clients with cruiser bikes to use to go look at properties. I'll get to put my sweet Bianchi Milano bike to work, with my panniers full of camera gear. It should be a decent day of work...I wish I got paid more, so I don't have to eventually leave this job. Or maybe I should get busy looking for that Sugar Daddy.... :)

Life on the High Plains

Sheesh, life's getting busy! I'm falling behind a little. It doesn't help that work has gotten a lot busier. We're required to work on the website now, making all of our own photo galleries. And since our prepress person left and won't be replaced, we're required to do all the preparation work to our images to get them ready for the press. It's not an enormous amount of extra steps, but just enough to be seriously time consuming when you have eight pictures to work up. Well, at least I have a job. ;)

Last week I followed a crew of friends (in my car, unfortunately) out to the High Plains trail to shoot it for my column. Mother nature came through for me with some astoundingly beautiful light and storm clouds:


Here's them riding:


Then a colossal windstorm kicked up, making me really glad I wasn't riding. It was hell-acious! It went on all night, taking out people's power into the next day. Damn. Here's the wind getting started:


This trail is actually pretty cool, in that it's right between Boulder and Superior, but it sits down in this little valley, and when you're on it, you can't see anything man-made except the occasional power line. No roads, no buildings, no parking lots...it's quite an accomplishment. I think it's going to be a struggle to figure out a way to write anything truly interesting about this trail, but it's new, and every time I mention it to people, they say, "the what Plains trail?" So it's clear that people don't really know it's been added to the Marshall Mesa area. I need to round up a pal or two and ride it myself sometime this week.

With no pictures needed. There's no way I'll get that kind of light again!